


Be still my beating heart

by LeighJ



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Beth Greene, Beth Greene Lives, Beth Lives, Biting, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Claiming, Claiming Bites, Come Shot, Consensual Underage Sex, Dirty Talk, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fighting, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Graphic Description, Hand Jobs, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Intimidation, Kissing, Loss of Innocence, Loss of Virginity, Marking, Multiple Orgasms, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Beth, POV Beth Greene, Porn, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Sex, Sex Talk, Smut, Spit As Lube, Stabbing, Strangulation, Swearing, Underage Sex, Vaginal Sex, Violence, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-13 16:24:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11188896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeighJ/pseuds/LeighJ
Summary: Beth and Daryl were separated when she was kidnapped and despite running all night for her, they stayed separated a very long time with Daryl finding Joe's group and never running into Rick, Michonne and Carl. Now on a lonely night and a lonely road, they find each other again but somethings going on with Beth and Daryl needs to know what that is. He'll do anything to find out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here's my new little piece I hinted towards at the end of Caught. Actually have no clue where this is going, only that I want it to be dark, angsty, smutty and a little fucked up. I have a feeling I'm going to hell for this piece. Also have no clue how long this will be, my plans really only extend towards one or two chapters more, but who knows? Caught was meant to be like two chapters and it continued to escalate due to kick ass comments so hold out for me and lets see where this takes us, hmm?

There's a lot of things that have made Beth Greene's heart stop in her lifetime and it's happened more in the last few years than ever before, for several reasons. Near death experiences being the main one, such as walker teeth inches from her flesh, but there has been one other reason, wheedled down to one man in particular: Daryl Dixon. The very first time was when she saw him riding up to her house on the farm, hair short and blonde, face less lined and weathered. The very last time was when she said that word, that word weighted in everything that could happen between them, soaked in memories to come and a love yet to be shared.

 _Oh_.

After that, she was taken and she wasn't sure her heart was going to be beating for that much longer anyway. There wasn't another chance for him to stop it with surprise, with excitement, with terror. Until now, as she faces him for the first time in a long time, so different from the very first time, everything different now. His hair and his clothes, the fight gone from his shoulders, the sky dark and cold, unfamiliar in a way the farm could never be. Most different of all is how she feels inside, like a scooped-out shell, waiting to be filled, dirty and bedraggled, hungry and exhausted and aching.

On a lonely road on a lonely night they meet eyes and even though before it had been racing with adrenaline, her heart stops. For a moment, there's nothing but Daryl's yawning pupil until a bush rustles close, too close, close enough for her to panic; then the voices of several men fill the space, push out the silence, loud enough to make her flinch; her hand to tremble at her side. Daryl's eyes flicker to the bush and then to her and the panic she sees in them, in the eyes of a man not easily scared, makes her throat close in terror.

"Claimed."

The word rings through the air like a gunshot and Beth flinches again, even rocks back on her feet like she's been hit. The group of men come to a stop, take her in stood not a few feet before them, covered in blood. Then they look at Daryl, who said the word, who is vibrating so hard Beth's eyes hurt to watch him.

A much older man in a rose shirt and with grey hair steps forward, takes the centre, directly between Daryl and Beth, and she watches Daryl tense up as the man speaks. "What'd we got here then? You lost, little girl? Looks like you got yourself in a right mess, huh?"

"I claimed her, Joe. Rules are rules," Daryl spits, taking a step forward.

The man -Joe- holds up his hand and Daryl stops. Beth's stomach clenches at his submission. Who is this man, to make Daryl Dixon do as he's told?

She takes a step forward and falters when Joe's eyes turn sharply to her, pinning her with a look that freezes her whole body. "Let the lady talk, Daryl. Go on, doll."

Beth's hand falls to her knife at her hip, the skin of her fingers crinkling with dry blood. "Ain't none of your damn business who I am."

"Ho-ho, she's got fire boys!" Joe crows and there's raucous laughter from the group of men further behind Daryl. He turns back to face her with a smile that makes her skin crawl. "How 'bout you tell us how a pretty little thang like you got covered in all that blood, hmm?"

The world swims a little in her vision like a filter has been lifted for her and Beth clenches her knife, still sheathed. All those screams ringing in her head until her eyes water and she glances at Daryl, at his tight eyes, his hands on the crossbow. He nods at her, just a tiny bit, only an incline of his head but she knows what she has to do, knows without conferring the plan they must put in place.

Beth swallows, releases her knife, sets a quiver to her voice that isn't quite fake and takes a step forward. "I k-killed people," she stutters and Joe's eyes tighten. "I didn't mean to!" She shouts on the tail end of a sob, two more steps closer. "They were tryin'a hurt me."

"Aw, doll, s'alright, we'll look after ya, won't we boys?" Joe turns to the crowd again, like he can't resist it and gets a holler before he turns back to Beth, startles a little when he sees how close she is. The look slides away as he reaches out a thick hand and curves his fingers over her cheek.

She whimpers; falls against his chest despite nausea rolling around in her stomach, the acid pooling in the back of her throat. "You promise?" She simpers.

"I promise, honey. Now, what's your name, huh?" His fingers stroke her skin and her whole spine goes rigid, despite her best efforts, as he swipes through dry blood.

"Beth," she breathes against his mouth, stretching on her tiptoes. Her stomach tightens at his breath but a smirk curves her mouth as his hand falls to her ass cheek; squeezes it. "I gotta tell you somethin' important."

She can see Daryl out the corner of her eye, so tense, his fingers tight on the crossbow, feet planted.

Beth tilts her neck back a little, resists the urge to grit her teeth as the man uses her ass to roll their hips together, feels his cock growing hard. "What's that, honey?"

She smiles, sweet as can be, rolling her hips back and watching Joe's eyes alight with lust. "You should never have let me this close to your face."

The world floods red as she dives for his neck, clamps down on the flesh and _tears._ Fresh blood soaks her face over dry blood and she recoils, her insides screaming in horror but for now, her brain shutting off and her body turning on to autopilot. Joe spasms, grips her hard then falls slack, staggers to his knees as he tries to cup his throat which is spraying blood through his crimson stained fingers. Beth's body pounds with adrenaline and the world floods back into her, the sound of fighting and flesh being hit, grunts and bodies impacting with the ground.

Turning, she finds that Daryl has disposed of most of the men, leaving bodies strewn on the floor but he's still fighting two and Beth pulls out her knife, runs and slides it straight through the back of someone's neck. The last one fighting with Daryl glances at her with gaping eyes as she presses her foot into the back of her victim and slides him off of the knife, letting his body fall and his face explode upon contact with the ground. His distraction allows Daryl to head butt him where he tumbles down and Beth drives the knife straight through his forehead, breathing hard.

When the last body drops, all sounds dissipate and the night is silent once more, bar hers and Daryl's panting. "Girl, the fuck happened to you?"

Beth turns her eyes on him, fingers clenched hard on her knife. "It don't matter. We gotta go."

"Like hell it don’t," he hisses, curling his hand free of the crossbow around her bare arm. "Jesus, Beth, you take a fuckin' bath in blood? The fuck happened?"

She jerks her arm free of his hold with gritted teeth. "We just killed these guys so we could get free, so lets stop fuckin' 'round an' go before they turn!"

Daryl looks like he wants to argue, pacing a little in a small circle of three steps before he jerks his chin. "C'mon."

They run.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two! I know the chapters have been a little on the short side so far, but I like to end them on cliff hangers just to be a little bitch so... sorry, not sorry, I guess? Looks like this will be a multi-chapter fic after all. Still no clue where this is going, I just type and hope for the best to be honest although, I've got a rough idea and there will be eventual smut, I promise. Now, enjoy!

Running makes Beth forget, just for a moment, what she's done. The horrors she's endured since she's been away from Daryl; been alone. It stops her from thinking about how stiff she is with dried blood, how pungent she smells covered in it, amongst other things. She forgets it for a moment and she just feels like Beth Greene again: braid in her hair, goodness in her heart, Daryl beside her, running for their lives. She forgets until they reach a stream and they collapse, down on their knees with no more strength left to continue. Daryl sprawls on his back like the first time they ran but she doesn't. She hunches over the stream, the moon lighting her up enough for a reflection. 

A blood bath is an appropriate way to describe her. It's caked into her skin, showing nothing but bulging eyes, pupils blown wide, and her hair is crimson like she dyed it with blood too. Unbound and sticking to her neck, her cheeks with sweat. She can't see the rest of her, but she doesn't need to because she can feel it. Gore and brains and blood and guts packed under her fingernails with mud, pressed so deep in her skin it's like it's absorbed her, provided her new flesh and her clothes are stiff with it, stuck to her, everything clinging. It's awful, feels awful as much as it looks and she makes a sound, a whimper maybe as she hastens to look away from herself, from the evidence of what she's become.

Daryl sits up behind her, breathing ragged and thirsty. "Gonna tell me what the hell happened now?"

"It don't matter," she says again, looking away from the water up to him.

"We bin over this an' it goddamn does, now tell me what the fuck happened, Beth!"

His hand locks around her shoulder and she flinches, jerks hard enough that he falls off. "Leave me alone! This is your fault! All of it!"

"Says the dumb little bitch who wanted to see a damn dog!" He shouts back, surging up to his knees like she is.

Beth growls, her heart racing. "Didn't come after me though, did you? Didn't try to fuckin' save me!"

"Fuck you! I ran all damn night for you!"

She pauses in confusion as she stares at his heaving chest, his clenched hands. She wants to believe him, wants to believe that he would run all night for her, come looking for her, try to save her from the hell she went through but she can't, she just can't because he's a _tracker_ for Christ sakes and he never found her, he never saved her, so how can it be true that he ever tried?

"You're lyin'," she says in the end as she looks away, into the grass they're surrounded by.

"Am I? Beth, I swear. I ran. Couldn't find you, girl but I _tried_." His voice is so sincere, so earnest and she craves the beauty of knowing that he tried, but she can't.

She spent too long cradled around herself, certain that he would burst through the door wielding his crossbow, haul her out of the hell hole she was in and run with her, run far away so that she was never taken from him again.

"Don't matter no more," she dismisses instead, not interested in going around in circles.

Daryl growls in frustration, falling back on his ass to the ground. "Just tell me why you're covered in blood, girl. Walkers?"

"No."

"What d'you do?"

"You really wanna know, huh?" She whirls on him with trembling hands. "I ripped the guts out of the men who took me, okay? I sliced open their bellies and I _teared_ them out with my fuckin' fingernails," she grinds out through clenched teeth. "Should do the same to you for _ever_ lettin' me go through the shit I did!"

Daryl's face remains like stone but his jaw tightens just a fraction. "They hurt you, girl? They touch you?"

She scoffs, glances away back into the water. "They didn't rape me, which is what you're really askin'." He breathes a huge trembling sigh and it makes Beth's eyes water, makes her keep speaking even when she wants to keep her mouth shut. "Wasn't even the first guys to take me."

Beth looks to Daryl's confused face and makes a noise beneath her breath, ripping up grass with her fingers and shredding them. He shuffles a little closer, his voice soft and not at all like him. "You can tell me, girl."

"Why? So you can kill 'em? Already done that. They're gone an' that's all that matters."

She stands, looks around at the sky beginning to lighten with the dawn. Daryl stands with her, the crossbow tight in his grip. "Wanna find somewhere to hole up?"

She nods, fingers wrapping around her knife in its sheath, just to provide her with some comfort. "Need some clothes though, can't stand these no more."

"One problem at a time," he grunts and then jerks his chin. "C'mon."

They continue to walk in silence, despite her believing Daryl would pester her with questions that she doesn't want to answer, but she seemed to have forgotten in their time away from each other that he's not a very talkative man and silence is more than fine with him, as it is with her now. It feels like they walk for hours and with the bright sun over them, it's more than likely they have. She's not sure how tired Daryl is, but she's gone many nights without sleep and she may be dead on her feet, but she can keep going if she has to. It's with that thought that they turn the corner onto a street once dedicated to a strip mall.

They fall back immediately, not having to converse to be in sync with each other, which is something Beth has to marvel at. Simply because she wonders when such a thing happened. Whether it was when they were running together or whether it's because they've both changed in their separation and therefore, who they are now is better suited to one another than who they were before. He keeps his hands locked on the crossbow and nods at her.

She takes her cue and glances back around the corner, tallying up the walkers. "'Bout ten that're visible. Could be more, lot of alleys an' some in the stores too."

Daryl nods as she pulls her head back in, unsheathes her knife and raises it in her palm. "Let's get you some goddamn clothes then find somewhere to hole up, 'cause girl, you fuckin' stink."

Beth rolls her eyes. "Look who's talkin' squirrel guts."

He snorts before they pull themselves together again. A nod is exchanged between them and then they both duck out at the same time, working together to take down walkers that turn towards them, reaching out severed fingers and moaning hungrily. There are more in the alleys, as it turns out but only a handful of which Daryl takes down while she glances inside a clothes shop and bangs on the door. Before, she would have jumped when a walker slammed itself against the window out of the darkness inside, but now she stares at it and sighs.

Yet another one to deal with and she's so fed up with blood, especially the black, rotted kind that sprays out of walkers. Daryl dips his chin as she indicates the window. Beth tries the doorknob, expecting it to be locked but it swings open and she slips in, raising her knife to embed it into the walker's forehead as it rounds the door towards them. She grunts as it gets stuck trying to come out. Really, she knows better than to go through the skull because it dulls the knife, but the eye socket wasn't available. Using her foot, she pushes its body off the blade with a grunt and steps over it when it sprawls to the floor.

She hears the door click shut behind her and Daryl turns the lock, glancing out through the blinds at the strip they just come through. "Anythin'?"

He shakes his head though he doesn't turn to face her. "Probably more 'round though. Shouldn't stay long."

"We'll stay if no more comes," she disagrees despite the look he throws over his shoulder at her.

"Just get some clothes girl, so I can go get us some food. I'm starvin'," he grunts.

Beth rolls her eyes but begins to search through the mess of the shop, rifling through upturned racks and tipped over piles of clothes. There's a display of bags that she comes across and she selects a backpack to use later. She can hear Daryl rooting through things too as she finds herself another pair of jeans and a black sweatshirt. It's a little hot for the sweatshirt right now but they haven't got blankets for the night time so she selects that to stuff in her bag and finds a t-shirt instead. She grimaces when she finds only white t-shirts left. Whoever looted before her was thinking the same thing as she is: a white t-shirt would be red with blood by the end of the day.

Beth sighs and selects one anyway, turning around in the mess she's stood in to find anything else of use. There's a pack of plain ankle socks covered in a little dust that she shakes off and a selection of thongs that no one seemed interested in before her. Bastards. Even still, fresh underwear is hard to come by and she takes the last ones in her size.

"You done?" Daryl interrupts her second circuit around the store.

She scowls at him. "Would be if you weren't makin' so much damn noise."

"The hell you talkin' 'bout girl? I'm a goddamn tracker, I don't _make_ noise."

"You haven't stopped rustlin' the whole time I been lookin' for shit!"

"Rustli-" Daryl cuts off as a squeak sounds, yet none of them are moving.

Beth whirls with her back to his chest as he raises the crossbow over her shoulder, his arm brushing her cheek as she raises her knife too. "Who the fuck's there?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have got plans for this fic that I am loving right now. Can't wait for you guys to see!

"I ain't eatin' that."

Daryl scoffs from where he's twirling his kill, impaled on the arrow he shot the second she finished speaking. "Ain't 'nough meat on 'im anyhow."

Beth grimaces at the rat curled in on itself around the arrow and then glances away, towards the back of the shop and a tall tower of boxes. "C'mon, rat catcher, this place has an upstairs."

They both move cautiously and quietly towards the back of the shop until they arrive upon the boxes, which are heavy to move and forces the pair of them to grunt as they shuffle them aside. Daryl connects eyes with her and takes the lead, crossbow held in the air while she stays right behind him, backpack slung over one shoulder and knife raised in her free hand. A stair creaks near the top but other than that, they make no sounds as they climb and come upon a door, which would be nothing but a simple door, if not for the bloody, half-formed fingerprints curving around the knob and peeking out from the frame too.

Beth doesn't have to converse with the hulking shadow above her to express her caution. He locks his shoulders, lightly grips the handle and shoves the door open at the same moment he pushes in, holding the crossbow high enough to take anyone's eyes out. She enters behind him and grits her teeth. The walls, once gold with some kind of pretty patterned paper are smeared with blood. Hand prints, finger prints, large swipes like someone cleaned off a knife. The apartment itself is destroyed: broken furniture, torn down pictures, upturned tables.

There are larger puddles of blood on the hardwood floor too, a thick enough trail to be the dragging of a body. Beth knows it should stink in here and it does, if she tries hard enough it does. But because she's been wearing it, on her skin, in her hair and all over her clothes for so long, days really, the smell isn't as pungent as it should be and that feels worse than if she was gagging with the stench, like she's been absorbed in rot and decay, soaked in it to points where she's not even human anymore.

"I gotta get out of these clothes," she mutters.

Daryl's doesn't look like he's got an opinion on that, so she starts stripping. "Woah, the fuck you doin', girl?"

She looks at him as she sheathes her knife, her open fly as far as she managed to get. "Takin' my clothes off, you got a problem with that?"

"Damn right," he growls. "Look, girl, I don't know what shit you went through, but the Beth Greene I know wouldn't just take her clothes off for any goddamn man to see." He clenches his jaw and looks at an upturned sofa.

"You're right, 'cept that girls gone an' she ain't never comin' back, so quit whining and suck it up."

"Beth-"

"No," she cuts him off, turning back to face him after she had started to walk away. "I don't know what you think's gonna happen here, Daryl, who you think you're travellin' with but it ain't no farmers girl an' it sure as shit ain't Judith's babysitter."

They face off from each other, her with her fly still open and Daryl with the crossbow still held up and loaded, like he could just release a bolt straight into her throat. "Then you gotta tell me what happened, so I understand or summat, Beth."

She sighs, glancing around at the apartment they're in, the destruction that most certainly wasn't walkers. "Humans are pieces of shit an' that got a hell of a lot worse when the world ended, okay?"

"You said there's good left in people, you taught me that," he says a little hotly, gesturing to himself with his hand.

She snorts. "Yeah? Well, I was treated like vermin, weren't allowed no clothes unless they were worried their…" she breaks off as her voice wavers and blinks away her wet eyes. "Unless their _play thing_ was about to freeze to death."

Beth can't look at Daryl, she can't bear any kind of pity she could find on his face and most of all it's easy to pretend that she hates him, that she thinks that this is all his fault. It's better than the truth anyway, which is that she was a dumb, weak little girl who couldn't survive one fucking minute unless someone was there protecting her. So she doesn't look at him and instead she turns and leaves, searching for anything to clean herself with. He doesn't follow her or try to talk anymore and she can't decide if that angers or relieves her.

The rest of the apartment doesn't look as destroyed as the living room as she walks through the hallway, but then she opens one of the closed doors to a bedroom. The sheets are soaked in blood, dyed a whole different colour where they could have been white to start off with. There are more hand prints on the walls but they end when they get to the door like they were stopped. Like a _person_ was stopped. Looking around at the purple and red colour scheme, it's not hard to determine that a woman lived here and she was the one who got hurt.

Beth swallows tightly, wondering what became of her and how her story ended. Did the world end and someone with a grudge decided that it was the most opportune time to kill her? Or was it someone she didn't know? Did she open her eyes in the middle of the night to an unknown face hovering over her, holding a weapon intended to kill her? Or was it just their hands? A flash covers her eyes, flickers at the corners until it fills up her eyeballs with it. Her, in that bed, young and small, blonde hair over the pillow and opening her eyes to her death.

It could have been her, not long ago. Now, it would never be her. Now, she's the person who stands on the side of the bed, knife raised and ready to kill. The flash changes and it's like she's not in the room now, all those red and purples, photo frames of a dead woman whose face she doesn't want to see. Now it's her in the darkness, pressed against a wall in a tiny room, looking down at the sleeping man in his tiny cot, bare-chested and ready as she plunges the knife down, slices it over his belly as he jerks away and screams.

"Beth?"

She whirls, her knife raised without her consciously taking it out and curving through the air. Her wrist stops inches from flesh and she has to blink a few times to take in Daryl's eyes through the dark strings of his hair, his pupils blown wide and his chest heaving with adrenaline as his fingers tighten around her wrist, rendering her still.

"Put it away, girl," he whispers.

There’s a long, long moment where she doesn’t know if she can. Until finally, she nods as calmly as she can manage even if her hand and wrist shake when he lets it go, the tip of the blade so close to impaling his chest she would have stabbed him straight in the heart if he wasn't quick enough.

"Sorry."

His hand raises, hesitant but still and curves around her cheekbone when she's done putting her knife away. "Y'alrite?"

She wants to shake off his touch, because touch doesn't feel all that great anymore but with it being so soft, so gentle, she doesn't because it _almost_ feels normal, like she used to be. "Fine, just wanna change."

Daryl dips his chin, lets his fingers slide off her face where they skim her lips. She tenses for a fraction of a second, staring at him with a racing heart. This isn't normal for them, she remembers quite suddenly. He isn't a touchy person, nor were they touchy people, even when they were running together. He's worried, she realises. So long ago he wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't believe that she could survive and she had to shout her mouth off at him, try to make him believe in her, believe that she would stick around, that she was as good as him at killing walkers; hunting dinner.

He didn't want to believe in her then, didn't see her as his equal but now she is. She can kill and she can hunt and she can survive being kidnapped, being hurt, being degraded, sleeping at night time with no one on watch. Now she's the girl he always needed her to be and he doesn't know how to deal with that and he's worried.

Despite herself, Beth reaches on tiptoes and presses a kiss to his cheek, the corner of his mouth really and she persists even when his shoulders lock up. "You ain't gotta worry 'bout me no more, Daryl. I can handle myself."

She pulls away and despite his red cheeks, he nods stiffly. "Yeah, m'startin' to see that."

"Good."

There's a silence until he sighs and looks out of the window above the bed. "It's gettin' late an' we ain't got no food. Gonna go hunt."

She waits for him to say, ' _you gonna be alrite_?' or, ' _you gonna come_?' but he doesn't. He's learning, adapting to her. He's beginning to see that she doesn't need protecting like she used to, that he doesn't need to drag her along because if she was left alone she'd be dead when he got back.

"Okay, I'm gonna find some way to have a wash."

Daryl nods and there's a second where he just looks at her, looks at her like he misses her even though she's stood right before him and it makes something dark and ugly squirm in her stomach. Then the moment is broken and he's leaving, his footsteps soft and quiet even as he steps through broken glass and shattered wood, out the door and down the stairs. Beth stands in the silence for a while until she resumes her search, walking around until she finds the kitchen. It's unnerving the minute she walks in there and all she can pinpoint it to is the overall pristine quality of the room.

Nothing in the world is as clean as this kitchen anymore. No prints of any kind: blood, mud, boot, hand or fingers. No hanging open cupboard doors or broken wood, shattered glass. It's all perfect but for a fine layer of dust that settles over everything. The first thing she looks through is the cupboards but there isn't much: an open box of tea bags, a half bag of sugar, some mouldy bread and stale biscuits. Either someone has come through here before without leaving a trace, or the woman who lived here didn't have much in when someone came to kill her.

Beth wonders for a moment why no one who raided the shop downstairs ever came up here but it's a distant thought that doesn't really need an answer and she dismisses it to look in the fridge. She gags the minute she opens the door. Rotted meats and foods have left stains all over the insides and there's an open bottle of milk that stinks to high heaven. She pulls open the drawer at the bottom to find mouldy vegetables and sighs, shoving it back. The fridge door shuts with a small slam of annoyance and she goes back to the cupboards.

It's not food she finds but a cupboard full of pills. Mostly pain killers, not the strong kind for any serious injuries but still good and other than that, there are anti-depressants. There's a lot of them, maybe enough to kill someone or at least knock them out if she ever gets in trouble. She grabs a couple boxes and shoves them in her bag, including a basic first aid kit tucked in the corner. It seems like a waste to leave all of the anti-depressants when there's so many, but she doesn't want to take up all the space in her bag so she leaves them and done with the kitchen, goes hunting for the bathroom.

Beth almost laughs as she walks in. The bathtub is full of water. No doubt freezing cold, perhaps having sat there from the day the owner was killed and admittedly has some dead bugs in it, but it's a whole tub of water and it's the best thing she could have come across. There's also a cupboard under the sink full of towels and the windowsill is lined with bath products. Most of them are empty but she does find herself an actual bottle of body wash and a flannel under the sink that only needs shaking a couple of times to get rid of the dust.

There's no conditioner but there's shampoo and it's half full. Beth feels a smile cracking along her face and it surprises her into stillness because she can't remember the last time she did something so simple. There's a mirror on the wall and she looks in it, looks at the mess that she is, the sun shining over her like a perfect light, the way the moon did at the creek. It's not someone she recognises, looking back at her out of the mirror. This creature of crimson, of death who has her eyes, her mama's eyes. Hesitantly, she reaches out blood-stained fingers and curves them over her own reflection, traces the cheekbone that Daryl cupped earlier, his fingers rough with callouses.

A smile slowly lights her mouth, thinking of his worry, of his tight mouth, of his need to be polite and respectful, to remind her of who she is, that Beth Greene doesn't just strip in front of men. The smile slowly recedes and she scowls at herself, at her fingers leaving smudges on the mirror. He'll never know who she is now, he'll never understand because he never went through what she did. Unable to look at herself any longer, she strips off her clothes, lays the new ones over the sink and stuffs her dirty ones in the corner to wash after, before she braves it and climbs into the bath.

Cold is not an accurate description for the water she sits down in, as fast as she can before she chickens out. Freezing isn't even a good enough word. She hasn't got any good enough words for the temperature of the bath because her brain and flesh practically goes numb the minute she gets in. Her teeth begin to chatter immediately and soon the numbness gives way to an intense burning, so cold it's like she's doused herself in bleach. Trying to be quick, despite the new heaviness in her limbs, she scrubs her flesh, starting at her toes and working up to her hips.

That alone takes several minutes, each pass of the flannel and squirt of soap washing away crusted blood and dirt, revealing her actual skin, fluffy with hair. Another large bout of time is spent on her upper body. Working from her hips up to her stomach, over her chest and shoulders, down her back as much as she can reach. Then she moves on to her neck, her face, her ears, scrubbing until it hurts as much as the water does. When she's done, she's shaking with the cold, her flesh stinging. It's worth it though when she raises her hand and it's her skin, not blood or brains or dirt. Her pale skin, clean nail beds and wrinkled, pruned fingertips.

It's all her and the bath she's sitting in is a colour she couldn't possibly describe, the monster she washed off. Red and black, brown and crusting at the edges of the bath already. The thought of lying down in it turns her stomach so she gets out, the water running off her splattering red on to the bathroom floor. There's a towel under the sink and it's stiff but warm and she shivers uncontrollably as she bends over the tub to wash her hair. Even more time is spent on her hair, washing it through, wringing it out and then wrapping it in another towel.

By the time she sits down to dry herself off her skin is covered in goosebumps and the towel is the same colour as the bath water. She pulls on her new clothes, including the sweater as her teeth chatter so bad they sink continuously into her bottom lip, her flesh numb beneath the fabrics as they cover her up. There's a second where she debates washing her other clothes but the bath water is nowhere near clean and she's not sure she even wants them anyway, so she leaves them on the floor and only pulls her boots back on, taking her knife too.

The sun is really low out of the window now and she wonders when Daryl will be back because her stomach hurts with hunger and anything hot would be a bliss. To pass the time she packs the body wash and shampoo, a towel and then goes back to the living room and starts pushing everything to the corners of the room, leaving a square space in the middle for them to sleep in. The sofa cushions have some blood spots on them but she flips them over and creates a place to lie down, wide enough for her and Daryl before she goes hunting again, finding a cupboard full of dusty sheets that she shakes off and takes back to the nest she's created.

When she's done, she collapses down on the cushions with a sigh, just getting comfy when the door opens and she shoots back up. Daryl stands there with his crossbow raised but lowers it as he sees her like she lowers back down when she sees him.

"You get anythin'?"

"You look better, don't smell so rancid neither," he says instead and Beth rolls her eyes. "I got squirrel." He turns to show her three squirrels hanging from his belt. "You hungry?"

"Starvin'," she answers with a knot in her gut. "We gonna cook 'em in here?"

"Nah, windows ain't boarded up an' there's still some walkers out there, can't be makin' no noise. Gotta cook 'em outside, 'fore the sun goes all the way down."

Beth sits up, hooks her backpack over her shoulders in case they have to leave and stands. "Let's go cook us some dinner then."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short and cruel, because I'm a bitch for cliff hangers.

With the squirrels cooked and eaten, Beth's limbs feel heavy and sluggish as they make their way back through the shop and up the stairs. It's dark when they get up there, the sun completely gone and no fire. It doesn't bother her overly much and she thinks it's simply going to be an inconvenience. Except when she whacks her toe on the upturned table she shoved to the side earlier, she quickly determines that it's a downright hazard and stumbles blindly to the nest she made in the middle of the room, throwing her backpack and flopping down when she finds the cushions.

Daryl sighs; lays the crossbow on the floor and joins her on the cushions. There's silence while she shakes out the sheets and one by one, lays them over hers and Daryl's lap. Her eyes are adjusting better now and with the two windows in here providing a little moonlight, she can just about make out shadows and shapes, particularly Daryl's hulking body so close to her, giving off a blast of heat to almost makes the sheets redundant. It continues to be silent even as she settles and usually she wouldn't care, the pair of them have travelled in silence many of times and it hasn't always been uncomfortable.

Except this _is_ because it's weighted with questions none of them are asking or in her case, are willing to answer. But she's been stuck in her own head for so long, given only her own silence as company and even if it makes her squirm: the questions she knows Daryl will ask, she desperately wants to rid herself of the oppressing quiet.

"Who were those guys we killed?" She finally asks.

Daryl snorts. "You can ask me questions but I gotta keep my mouth shut when it comes to your Beth Greene reboot?"

She scowls. "Fine. Ask me, but you gotta answer me."

He sits forward, raises one knee and slings his bulging forearm over it. It's too dark to see his eyes but his head is turned towards her and more than anything she feels their weight like a tonne of bricks. "Joe an' his group. Ran into 'em afta I stopped runnin'."

"Gave up on me, you mean?"

"Stop," he growls. "We ain't doin' that."

Beth sighs and leans back on her elbows, closing her eyes. "Okay. Why did you say 'claimed' when you saw me?"

There's a beat of silence and her stomach squirms. "'Cause that's how Joe worked. You wanted somethin', you claimed it. If I didn't claim you an' someone else did, then you'd be theirs, no questions asked."

She laughs under her breath. "Right. Good job we killed 'em all then." He hums under his breath back at her, like he's not quite in agreement. "Your turn."

"You said those guys weren't the first to take you."

"That a question?"

"You got an' answer?"

Beth rolls her eyes. "Don't be difficult."

"Stop dodgin'."

"I ain't!"

"Be quiet!"

At some point, she sat up, all the way to her knees which brings her very close to Daryl's face. She swallows and sits back on her haunches, pulls her sweatshirt off and stuffs it in her backpack to give her time to calm down. When she's ready, she settles back on her ass and crosses her legs, clasps her hands between her knees so she can't strike out if she gets pissed off.

"They weren't the first to take me. They were the second."

"What happened to the first? Who were they? I seen a car pull off with you."

Beth chews on her lip, which is more characteristic to Daryl than her so she stops. "I got away from the first. The trunk weren't shut all the way an' I threw myself out, ran as fast as I could in your direction."

He heaves out a breath like it pains him to hold it. "I was runnin' all night, no way were runnin' towards each other."

"I'll get to that."

"How'd you end up with the second guys? The one whose guts ya pulled out?"

"Slow down," she mutters, taking a deep breath as her heart beats rapidly. She's starting to think the silence is better again, but she started this so she has to be brave enough to finish it. "They caught me, between the boot and runnin' to you, apparently. Knocked me out. Woke up someplace I didn't know, stayed there a while."

Daryl's jaw clicks in the silence, his teeth scraping against each other. "What'd they do to you, girl?"

She clenches her own jaw now, squeezes her hands together between her knees. "Didn't let me wear clothes. Beat me, when the mood struck 'em. Had me kill walkers for 'em, stopped me from sleepin' an' treated me like I was some kinda slave, like some kind of _animal_ ," she spits.

Beth jumps when Daryl growls, slams his hand down in a fist. "Hope havin' their fuckin' guts pulled out _hurt._ "

"Be quiet," she mutters but a smirk tugs at her mouth. "An' it did. They screamed, a lot."

The smirk falls almost as quickly as it arrived as those very screams ring in her ears, drowning out whatever he grunts in reply. Revenge was good, for the first adrenaline filled hour. To pull on her clothes and leave them to rot, to scream in agony as she left, covered in their blood and their guts under her nails. It made her dizzy, almost catatonic as she ran. For a while that was all she did, with no purpose or thoughts or plan, no supplies, she just ran. Then it slowed to a jog, right down to a walk and before long she stumbled down to her knees and stared blankly up at the sky. It had been broad daylight when she killed them. 

When she woke up after curling into a ball, it was night time and despite her stomach hurting with hunger and her mouth as dry as the desert for water, she curled back up and went to sleep. Walkers found her eventually and she took them out, covered herself in more gore, went back to sleep for even longer. It had been so long since she gotten any kind of rest, held captive with the men whose names she never learned, was never told because to them she was nothing but a thing. She's not sure how long she slept, curled up in the road but when she woke again it was day time and she just kept walking, all through the day until she found Daryl, on that road, killed even more people.

"What's our plan, girl?"

Beth looks up, shaking herself out of her thoughts and tries to narrow her eyes on Daryl's shadow. "What plan?"

"Where'd we go from here? Look for the others?" He asks, inching closer.

She slowly nods as he draws nearer, his breath touching on her face. "Yeah. What else we gonna do?"

"Just askin'." His fingers curl around her knee and squeezes. "Just don't know if there's anyone to find. S'been a while since… ya know."

She nods again. It's a possibility, it's always a possibility that in separation she's lost the people she cares about, but she's refused to think about it. It's all been one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. Sleep, eat, walk. Then she found Daryl and it was wash, change, gather supplies. Now it's just sit. Take a breath and rest for two minutes. All plans for after haven't yet formed. Freedom is too rewarding at the moment and all she wants to do is bask in in.

"Daryl, can we just… be, right now? I don't wanna plan or think or do anythin'. I just wanna be here."

He's quiet and then he squeezes her knee again. "Whatever you want, Beth."

She frowns, leaning back a little to look in the direction of where she thinks his eyes are. "Why you bein' so nice?"

He takes his hand from her knee and she bites her lip when she realises how warm he was on her skin, straight through her jeans. "Girl, I thought you was dead or at least gone, for good."

"What, an' that would'a bothered you? You always seem like you don't like me much," she means to say it normally, but it comes out in a whisper like she's imparting a great secret.

He grunts as he leans closer and it's a blink of an eye before their shoulders are pressed together. "You're family, girl."

A smile grows and once more she's struck with it, how easy it's beginning to feel again, smiling. Because of him. "Get outta here with your mushy shit, where's the Daryl Dixon I know gone?"

He's silent for a very long time and she struggles to hold the smile, wondering what part of that sentence offended him.

Finally, when he speaks, his voice is rough and low, sending a chill straight down her spine. "Left 'im. On the road when he collapsed runnin' afta that car. When he let me down, let _you_ down."

She turns her head and they're so close that their foreheads brush, her stomach flipping in response to the contact. "You didn't let me down, an' I'm back now, different but back, so you can bring him back too."

"You mean the guy who would freak out, this close to _Beth Greene_? Nah, he can stay back there," his murmur sweeps over her lips and her heart thumps wildly.

"An' you're not freakin' out?"

"Not s'much as he would."

"What're 'bout now?" She breathes.

When they lean in and touch lips, it's together.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to take the opportunity to genuinely, from the very bottom of my heart, thank each and every one of you. I'm still very new to Ao3, still kind of fretting over tags and if I've got all the right ones in, learning to navigate this new site after years of being over on Fanfiction. Kudos, bookmarks, hits, comments make me as happy as favourites, follows and reviews. But there are three very special people who make me smile the most crazed grins you've ever seen grace someones face. Those three wonderful human beings are Coco04, wallflow3r and Doe Q. Without fail, you guys comment on my works, in lengthy, chunky paragraphs that make me swoon and not only do you compliment me endlessly, you go into deep analysis of the characters I've so vulnerably offered you to judge and the settings I put them in and the chemistry between them. I can't tell you how it feels to see your comments in my email, the cheeky little things you say -looking at you Coco- and the inspiring ideas you give me -wallflow3r- and the confidence boosts you give me when I'm not quite sure how I felt about my writing in the latest chapter - Doe Q- you guys have made my life sparkly and happy ever since I joined this site, welcomed me with open arms and endless praise and I just want to say thank you so God damn much. I'm rambling and getting emotional, I'm sorry guys I'm just saying thank you and spreading the love. You guys rock ❤️
> 
> Oh and I had way too much fun writing this chapter.

The kiss is soft, ever so hesitant and not something she would have thought Daryl would prefer when kissing. It's nice though, smooth and gliding, their lips wet and supple.

They pull away not long after and despite how close together they are, Beth struggles to make out all the lines and shadows of his face or his eyes through his hair. "S'real dark in here," she whispers.

He hums, his hand reaching up to cup the back of her neck and she makes a soft, pleased sound when his fingers bury in her hair. "You scared?"

Almost immediately she wants to snap at him. Scared? When there are flesh-eating walkers and humans gone crazy, a high chance that she could die at any given moment, he's asking her if she's scared of the _dark_? She nearly does snap but she clenches her teeth before she can.

"A little," she finally admits, curling closer to his heat.

Daryl presses a feather light kiss to her lips, his fingers stroking her scalp. "Ain't nothin' or no one ever gonna hurt you again, girl. Swear."

Cynically, she wants to jibe that he's just saying whatever he can to get laid, but that's disrespectful to him and she knows it. She's been through some terrible things, some really horrible things and she has every right, every damn right in what's left of the charred world to be scared of the dark, just like he has every right to want to protect her. When she felt like she had to prove herself, live up to the likes of her fierce older sister Maggie and the women who she respected and wanted to be like such as Carol and Michonne, she would have recoiled at the thought of him protecting her.

She was a stubborn, young teenager who was trying to adjust to not only the new world but herself too. Battling depression in the midst of survival is a cruel joke. The overwhelming urge to die coupled with the deep-seated need in every human being to fight, to claw with fingernails and teeth in order to stay alive, in whatever manner possible. Now it's different, so very different because she _has_ proven herself. Before even being kidnapped, not once but twice, she killed and skinned animals for dinner, ran like the fires of hell were at her feet, took down walkers, built a fire, secured shelter and most important of all she started wanting to live.

Then after, she killed to protect herself and finally became the woman she always wanted to be. It's time to stop being a child, to put away her childish things and grow up and that's what she's done. Now a grown man wants to protect her, wants to hold her hand and kiss her softly in the moonlight and be there for her, in the same way he's always wanted to be there for her, whether that was putting food in her belly or bringing her tampons back from a run, despite his blushing cheeks. Beth knows she's taken too long to reply now so she leans in again and kisses him, basking in the warmth of his mouth, the silk of his tongue as it passes over her bottom lip.

The tantalising feel of his hair as she drags her fingers through it. Daryl groans longingly into her mouth and a fire like no other sparks in her gut, between her legs. She spreads them, levels up on her knees so she can straddle his lap, cup his cheeks between her palms. His hands move too, falling down to her hips, his fingers touching down on a strip of exposed skin. They kiss for an age until her jaw aches with it and she has to pause, pull away and look at his face tilted up to hers.

"I never done this before," she murmurs quietly.

Daryl's hair was pushed back by her fingers earlier and so now she can see his eyes in a bar of moonlight through the window. "Kissed?"

"No," she laughs softly, her lips descending to his jaw where his scent is most present, filling her nostrils until she's dizzy with it. "I never had sex before."

He groans as her lips press to a spot just below his ear and sucks with gentle pressure. "Shit, Beth."

She does it again, pulling the flesh into her mouth and sucking a little harder, scraping her teeth over the warmth. "S'that okay?"

"Beth," he grunts. "S'real good."

At this point, she's a little unsure if they're talking about what she's doing to his neck or about being a virgin, but she can't find the willpower to stop so she doesn't ask. Instead, she moves a few spaces down and repeats the action, lashing her tongue over the gathering of sweat she finds misting his skin. His hands had paused on her waist but now they move again, as she gets further down his throat with her kisses, his hands glide up, pushing her t-shirt over her hips. Each brush of his skin is sweltering hot and it sends waves of heat to her pussy, like a promise of how he's going to fill her with blistering warmth.

She's struggling to remain still in his lap, his hands on her bare flesh and his skin in her mouth. The rocking starts before she really decides to do it and the sudden pang in her cunt makes her release his flesh from her mouth with a startled gasp. He grunts against her, where his mouth had fallen to the side of her brow, mouthing kisses down the right side of her face. Beth rocks again; spreads her legs a little so the hardness trapped beneath her hits her clit through her jeans. She whimpers, a dull ache beginning to form every time she moves against him until her pants become a little ragged and breathless.

Daryl's hips stop moving with hers like they were previously doing and she mewls in disappointment, trying to continue on her own. He stops her, pulling their flushed bodies apart so he can drop his hands and go back to his previously abandoned task of tugging on her t-shirt.

She baulks a little as the fabric climbs higher and he notices, his hands stopping when the t-shirt gets as high as her ribs, exposing her belly. "Y'alrite?"

She nods, though she's not truly sure. "Just… bein' naked…"

He's still and silent and she's close to him but can't depict his expression. "We can stop, girl, just say the word."

A shaky smile lifts her lips and she shakes her head. "S'okay. Go on."

The top continues to roll upwards, folding over her new bra where Daryl stops, his eyes keen on her breasts covered by the cups. She bites down on her lip when he reaches for one of them and tugs, folding it under her left breast and exposing her nipple to the cool air. Beth stops the gasp from worming free and instead watches him as he does the same to the other cup.

"You wanna take it off?"

He nods but he doesn't stop looking and when he raises his hands it's to curve his large palms over her breasts and sweep his thumbs over her tight nipples. This groan does get free, breaking between her teeth and releasing her bottom lip from its captivation. His thumbs are warm and thick, pads rougher than her own and they grate pleasantly over her tingling nipples.

"That alrite?"

Despite the question, he doesn't look up when he speaks so she imagines he misses her nod of reassurance but there's no way he misses her throaty moan when his lips wrap around a nipple. If she wasn't so turned on she doesn't imagine it would feel as good as it does, but she is turned on and the warm cavern of his mouth suckling her makes her eyes practically roll in her head. Daryl glances up under his lashes at her, his mouth curving over the next nipple as he goes to it. She whines softly, hands dragging through his hair again while he enacts sweet torture.

Finally, it's far too much and she pulls him away, panting with desperation to get their clothes off. He laughs beneath his breath at her enthusiasm but helps all the same. She reaches back to undo her own bra when he struggles to do it on the third try and instead he takes her t-shirt off, bunching it up in his hands and pressing it to her lower back as he takes her mouth in another kiss. The man is intoxicating and his kisses just as much, the indention in his lip she feels over her passing tongue, the silk of his own brushing hers.

It's all a touch overwhelming, too exciting and she has to take a moment to just breathe, her hands braced on his shoulders and her forehead pressed against his jaw. He allows her the time she needs without comment, pressing tender kisses to her damp hair, his hands sweeping over her spine now he's thrown her t-shirt somewhere. When she feels like the room isn't spinning anymore, she sits up again and wordlessly starts to undo his shirt. There are no words from Daryl, but he begins to tremble just slightly beneath her, something she wouldn't have noticed if she didn't vibrate with it.

She tries to be soothing, but she's not sure what aspect is making him so nervous, so she's equally not sure that she does a great job. Even still, the shirt comes off and he shakes it from his elbows until he's done and reverts back to his stillness. It feels a little ridiculous for them both to be shirtless with their whole lower halves still dressed, including their shoes but she's distracted from it when she sees his bare chest. To think his reaction to her is the same as her reaction to him makes it a little easier to understand how he could find pleasure in such a flat chest.

There's just _so much_. Skin which is usually golden but now, under the influence of the moonlight, is like smooth ivory, chiselled to perfection. For a split second, she's almost resentful that she doesn't have the warm oranges and golds of a fire, or a bright red sun to see his naked skin under. To think of how golden his flesh could be under those kind of colours, like honey. Regardless of the moon, he's a stunning sight. Broad shoulders dipping down to a chest lightly furred, nipples flat disks that she thinks she should suck when she gets the opportunity and stomach not overtly taunt but still firm.

Truthfully, she has to hold back from shoving him down to the floor and balancing her hands on his stomach while she impales herself on his cock. It's a strong urge and she only manages to counteract it by sweeping her hands down his flesh, soaking up his warmth in the pads of her fingers. She's never truly cared for a guy's body or more accurately, has never been biased because of it. But Daryl's arms are so thick, his biceps bulging without him even trying, his forearms covered in dark hair and his knuckles tattered.

He looks like a _man_ and she's a woman now, but he makes her feel like a girl, like that lost little farmers girl she was when he drove up to the house on his motorcycle, looking dangerous and handsome, looking like a _bad boy_ , the type Maggie and Shawn always told her not to find herself alone with. He's so handsome and it strikes her dumb where she simply ogles.

"Beth, Christ, s'it that bad?"

She blinks a little and then frowns. "What're you talkin' about?"

"Ya starin' girl."

She flushes. "Sorry, s'just… real nice."

He snorts and she lightly taps his stomach, which makes him jerk. "I'm serious, Daryl. You're…" she gets a little flustered trying to find the right word. "You're _hot_."

Daryl laughs, deep and hard and if he didn't nearly topple her over with the movement she would have found time to gape in astonishment at the sound because she's never heard it come out of his mouth ever before.

"Shut up," she grumbles finally.

He cuts it out but his hand takes a hold of her face again. She's sure he's going to say something but he doesn't, just stares at her with open-eyed interest, like she's a puzzle he can't yet understand. She stares back, unsure of her next move until her hands slide from his stomach where she was resting and land at his waist.  Daryl doesn't react but she bites down on her own lip as she pushes the button through and pulls on his zip.

"C'mere." He suddenly lifts, taking her body with him and lays her down on the cushions.

Her hair fans around her as she looks up at him, his body illuminated by the moon. Bending over her moments after, he tugs at her boots, undoing the laces and clearing them off her feet, going back for her socks after. Beth wiggles her feet as they're freed, grimacing at the fluff covering her toes, having forgotten the mess of new socks. Daryl doesn't seem to notice or particularly care because he reaches for her jeans next and she helps, pushing while he pulls. His fingers catch in her thong just as her jeans are clearing and suddenly she's naked.

There are no windows open, but a breeze seems to settle over her skin and a shiver rolls right down her spine, bringing goose bumps along with it. Daryl sits back on his haunches and simply stares down at her, the moonlight slashing over his hips and her face, the in between lost to shadows, such as her own hips and his expression. It's a vulnerable feeling, being naked and so openly regarded, but she's not uncomfortable, especially with the reverent way he gazes upon her. She wonders what she looks like in the moonlight, how drastically it changes her like it altered him. Does she look like a statue of ivory? Is her hair tinted silver?

His blue eyes are dark wells in the shadows, so what must her own blue look like in such white light? Silver like her hair? Grey like a cloud on a miserable day? What does he see when he looks down at her stomach and hips, her thighs lost to the darkness? What does he think of her coarse curls between her legs, the fluff on them? The moment isn't broken when he moves but simply extended, almost breathless as his fingers fall to his jeans and starts to shrug them down. He works up to his feet and from her point way down on the cushions it is a breathless, holy vision that she gazes upon.

The moonlight falls thick and bright over him, illuminating every muscle. His hair is the inkiest black as he leans down to work his boots off, shaggy and in need of a haircut but still the most striking colour against his skin in the light. He must step on an object in the way because when he clears his boots he turns to move whatever it is she can't see from out under his feet and something thick and clogged catches in Beth's throat. The scars are ethereal in the moonlight and the minute the small whimper catches he freezes, turned half way around, his back and hips turned towards her.

She freezes too and she knows what it feels like, for someone to see something so intimate, for them to look upon scars marring skin and judge or worse, pity. She's not sure what he intends to do about it, now that she's seen them. She was aware of them, from days on the farm, listening to her daddy whisper to Maggie and then the prison, when Carol was talking to Lori. Seeing them, however, is a completely different thing. No one knows how he got them, just that he seems to be ashamed of them, or at least makes sure he hides them.

Going further out into the trees than even she did when they had to change on the road, when they lost the farm before the prison. She wonders herself how he got them because they're vicious, clotted marks of what can only be violence. From who is the question? When she was younger she would have guessed prison. That was how she judged him before, until not too recently when they had the fight playing 'Never have I ever' but now she's not so sure. While he did immediately freeze up, now he stands and turns all the way around so his back is to her, for her to see. For her to judge.

She swallows, tracing them with her eyes, glancing over his tattoos. There's a story there, she knows. The scars and the tattoos, like there's a story on her wrist, of how she survived in a world that gave up, tried to make her give up. There's a story, but she doesn't know if she's brave enough to ask him to tell it and that makes her frown because it's time to put away childish things but maybe she's grown up enough to understand her limits and his too. In continued silence, he kicks away the rest of his clothes, giving her a view of his ass that makes the most stupid flutter pound in her gut.

Then he turns, his jaw a little too tight, like he's clenching his teeth until his eyes fall over her again, still embraced by the cushions, hair damp and sprawled around her face. She thinks about sitting up when he crawls to his knees but it doesn't feel like the right thing to do. Instead,she embraces him as he crawls into her, spreads her legs and lets him lie between them, lets his head fall to her throat and his lips rest against her pulse, which is thrumming. They stay like that for a while, her arms wrapped around him, his hand slipped under her neck.

"You wanna talk about 'em?" She whispers into the silence.

Daryl turns his head just slightly into the hollow of her throat, his hot breath blasting across her skin. "Not now."

Her hands edge down his shoulders where if she remembers correctly, his first scar is about to appear. "Can I touch 'em?"

A beat of silence and then, "yeah."

She hesitates because they're special and touching them is special. So she's slow and light, inching her fingers down and not using her whole palm to trace the first scar she comes across. His breathing changes, bursting a little quicker and heavier over her throat, but he doesn't tense or go rigid like she expected and she smiles. Her fingers continue to work down as far as she can go, though she knows more scars are in places she can't easily reach. They're thick and knotted like they didn't heal properly and it makes her eyes sting but she refuses to cry. She basks instead in the warmth and weight of him, settled so perfectly into her smaller body. It's when she shifts a little, trying to ease some weight off of her lungs that his cock presses right against her cunt and she gasps, a network of sparkles lighting through her blood stream.

Daryl makes a similar sound and lifts his face so they can see each other in the limited light, his hand coming once more to rest upon her cheek. "Y'sure you want this, with me? I ain't never taken a cherry before. Hell, I hardly done this at all before."

Beth doesn't find that as surprising as she thought she would, that a man of his age has only had sex a handful of times and never with a virgin, so she shrugs. "I trust you."

"Christ," he mutters under his breath but it's with an amused tone and she smiles.

He moves away, sitting back so he looks down on her again and takes his cock in his hand. Beth's eyes widen a fraction, watching his thick fingers as they curl around his shaft and pump slowly, gently, his hips moving and teeth clenched, his thumb even sweeping through the wetness at the tip and smearing it around. She's never given a blowjob before because she's always thought it was kind of gross but looking now at Daryl's dick in his hand, thick and looking impossibly big, a vein crawling up the underside, she can see the appeal. The wetness between her thighs seems to spread as she shifts, growing more flustered by the minute while Daryl watches her watch him fuck his own fist.

It's unlawfully erotic and she whimpers softly, flexing her spine a little in the most provocative, sexy pose she knows. "C'mon, Daryl, please."

He groans and leaves his cock for the time being to grip her thighs and hook them over his own. She squeals quietly, catching the tail end of it as her hips and ass raise a little off the ground, supported by Daryl's thick thighs underneath her, his skin sweaty and searing hot, fusing them together in the most delicious way.

When she's in position, panting a little desperately, he takes a hold of himself again and jerks his chin at her. "Spread yaself for me, girl. Lemme see your pink pussy."

She flushes, all the way from the roots of her hair down to her curled toes but she does as she's told, reaching between her thighs to part her pussy lips with her fingers spread in a V. Beth flushes all over again when they glide in, past her coarse curls and straight into wetness, pinching her clit in a way that makes her moan low in her throat. Daryl grunts pleasantly, leading the tip of his cock and presses it against her clit, brushing her fingers and making her cunt flow with juices. There's a mutual gasp as he rides her slit, lowering from her clit to her opening. He circles, once, twice and then a third time when she breathes a desperate kind of moan.

"Y'ready, girl?"

God, she is and she nods, torn between watching pleasure break across his face or watching his cock slip into her sopping cunt. She has to settle for jerking her gaze between the both possibilities and groaning with each sight as erotic as the other. He manages to push nearly halfway in before she tenses up, something between her legs screaming with the intrusion.

Beth grunts and Daryl's hand on her knee squeezes. "That's it."

That is it, the breach inside her, the loss of her virginity, giving way under his pushing dick. The skin of her inner thighs catches as he pushes and he has to pull out, hands falling to her knees as he encourages her to spread her legs further so he can push in again, slipping further now than he did before. The sweat on her body feels sticky and oppressive, the overall heat drowning her as her cunt burns. It's not exactly pain as he pushes in to the hilt, forcing grunts between their teeth but more an intense pressure, a feeling of fullness that she's never experienced in her life and a deep-seated ache in her hips that's uncomfortable, like stretching muscles.

It's a little disorienting and Daryl stays marginally still, moving in the most fractious way possible. Her hand that isn't spreading her pussy lips is clinging to Daryl's forearm and it tightens there as he pulls out, his cock glimmering and then pushes back in, deep as he can. The breath bursts out of her, her hips aching a new. They keep going, his thrusts slow and measured, adjusting her walls to the shape of him. It's still quite uncomfortable, not pain or pleasure but pressure of the thickest kind. Regardless, Daryl's pants are deep and ragged, a struggle to breathe through the pleasure tightening his mouth.

Just looking at him makes her clit pang desperately and she thinks while being fucked isn't yet pleasurable, touching her clit may be. She's right because touching on her exposed clit, slippery with her juices and Daryl's pre-cum, makes her legs spasm and causes a shock to lash her spine. Above her, the hulking shadow and inky hair that has become Daryl grates something between his teeth she can't hear but causes spittle to spray out.

His tongue dips out to collect it back up and her open lips part at the sudden vision behind her eyes. "Spit on me."

His hips stutter sharply, hitting something deep that makes her yelp. "Fuck, girl, what'd you say?"

"Spit on me!" She tries to say but with every pump of his hips and every burst of her breath it's more, like "spit, _unh_ , on, _unh_ , me!"

He bites his lip, pulling it into his mouth and sucking and it's so hot she swipes her clit extra hard. Releasing his lip, he lets a thick runner of drool collect there and then dribble down where it hits her clit with fresh wetness. She rubs it in and lets loose a cry at the new lube, his cock in her no longer tight and halting but loose and gliding, slick. With more speed she strokes her clit, bouncing her hips down on Daryl's cock pumping into her, her breasts bouncing too with the hurried movement. Her neck strains back and she spreads her legs even wider, this irrational, driving need to have him _deep_ , so deep, all the way inside her, far as he can go and she moans desperately for it.

Her hands abandon her clit and his arm to instead reach around and grab his ass, dig her fingernails in. Daryl jerks, hits that spot that makes her keen like a dog. " _Fuck_ , Beth."

"You like that?" She pants thickly, squeezing his clenching ass even tighter.

"Yeah."

"Yeah? God, it's so _good_."

He growls in agreement, plunging a little harder now, a little more reckless as her hands squeeze him and her fingernails dig into his flesh, pushing at his ass so that he'll plunge hard and deep inside her rippling, begging cunt, the only sounds pouring between her lips a steady _unh, unh, unh_! His hand shoots down from where he was grabbing her knee, possibly aiming for the side of her head but somehow, it lands on her throat. The air cuts out, sounds cut out and quite suddenly she's having the most soul-shaking orgasm she's ever had in her life. Daryl keens shrilly, the sound tumbling out of his mouth and blasting against her skin, turning her inside out and snapping her spine, locking her muscles with the excruciating fire that descends upon her.

His hand tightens on her throat, thumb and fingers digging in like bright sparks of light, choking the very breath from her; making stars pop behind her eyes and most incredibly, her pussy clamp down on his cock and pulse another devastating orgasm through her blood stream, blowing her head wide open with the rush. Daryl's hips are now driving so deep and fast and hard it makes her hips scream for mercy but the violent drive of his cock inside her and the vicious slap of his skin against her thighs and the vision that starts to shatter around the edges is too fucking good to stop and she lets him fuck her body through the second orgasm that feels like it will never end.

It does, when his hips snap up sharply and he falls over her, panting something dark and dirty and filthy in her ear. "Claimed."

His teeth sink straight into her shoulder and bite hard enough that the pain between her legs completely evaporates. She screams uncontrollably and while his hips jerk between her thighs and he destroys her with his cock and bites her shoulder; slaps his meaty, sweaty palm over her mouth and clenches, containing her scream in his hand. The scream is just tapering off when his dick drags out, releasing her juices that spill down the crack of her ass when Daryl splashes his cum hot against her pussy lips and in her curls.

His mouth stays locked on and her shoulder burns for it but it's a delicious kind of agony she doesn't want to stop. She finds her body twitching under him, her nipples painfully tight and cunt throbbing. It's a long while of racing hearts and panting breaths before he finally does detach his cruel teeth and her skin feels so tender wet gathers in her eyes but it's the good tender, like her pussy. He rolls onto his back, the breath puffing out of him. She sprawls herself over his chest and his hand curls around her shoulders, fingers dancing through her hair and down her spine, avoiding the bite after she winces when he gets too close.

"I feel dead."

"I feel alive."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I really wanted to be accurate about travel and walking distances, placements of all the characters in the show in the real timeline and how that would work with my timeline. I looked all over google and some generous, perfect soul literally gave the most intricate, detailed run down of all seasons placements and travelling distance. Like which road Rick took to get to the farm and how they managed to find the prison, the amount of miles they walked, etc. 
> 
> It was amazing but the show uses a lot of fake places that don't correlate with other real places and then there's the debate between the comic's giving a place but the show not and it all become too much of head ache so basically I'm saying, I winged it. I live in England and I've never been anywhere near the places used in the show, so it was already a mind fuck to begin with.
> 
> On another note, you know how much you all loved the last chapter? Well, there was a reason for that and before you see the ending and try to boil me alive, remember that I pre-warned this piece would be dark/angsty and would give me a well earned place in hell. 
> 
> With that said, enjoy.

There's a point, between falling asleep on Daryl's chest and morning where Beth wakes up all of sudden, not giving herself time to groggily become aware of her surroundings but instead snaps straight up, her hand searching for a knife at her hip that isn't there. That gives her pause and then so does the cool air stroking her skin, her _bare_ skin. It comes back in a rush, the night before, wiping away the adrenaline and the escape routes from her mind, the alarming discomfort of waking in a dark room with no clothes on. Her eyes find Daryl, sprawled on his face, arms spread up and outwards, taking up most of the cushion space. 

She relaxes, listening to his deep breaths and watching his body rise and fall. It's watching him breathe that causes her to notice the scars again, although they're not easily forgettable. The moon is high and near, dawn not far off she imagines and it washes him in such thick white that the scars practically become translucent, fading into his skin. With a breath tightly held she leans near and traces them with her fingertips, settling back on her hip. Daryl's breathing doesn't change but she knows he's awake when her lips settle over the first scar and he shudders like she slipped ice cubes over his spine.

"Hey," she whispers quietly.

He hums, his hand reaching back to her thigh and pulling it over his hip from behind. She gasps a little because the parting of her legs brings to attention the stickiness smearing her inner thighs. After a while, she thinks he's gone back to sleep as his body relaxes under the pressure of her lips over his scars.

She's tracing the one near his shoulder when he mumbles, somewhat sleepily, "my old man."

"Hmm?" She frowns against his skin, lifting her head to look at his face.

His eyes are closed, mouth slack and his arms curled under his pillow like he's sleeping, but he continues to talk. "My old man beat me. Me an' Merle, when we's kids."

Her stomach tangles into a knot so tight she feels sick with it. "Daryl, you don't ha-"

"I wanna."

"Okay," she breathes against his skin, pressing her lips along the scar she paused at. "Okay, tell me."

"S'bout it. He was a murderous, spiteful bastard an' he hurt us, hurt my old lady 'fore that. Drank all day an' beat us all night."

Beth's eyes burn but she blinks rapidly, her lashes fluttering against his skin like a confession. "I'm sorry."

"Long time ago, m'a grown man, been through lot worse since then. Way of the world."

She doesn't know what to say to explain what she's apologising for but she supposes it boils down to judgement again. When she thought that he would never understand what she went through, never know the pain of a beating and the emotional abuse of not knowing what she did wrong except apparently she did nothing but wrong, because _she is_  wrong. She didn't even realise that they were a lot more alike than she could have ever guessed. He'd told her about his shitty life, the kind of places he lived in, alluded to some hard times when they were in the shack, when she took his hand and put her middle finger up and told him to say fuck you to the past.

Another judgement, because she thought he meant a life of poverty and parents that had babies too young, a brother who always tried to push him from his shadow, high school dropouts and welfare. Not beatings, not an angry father who hurt him and his whole family and not, by the size and thickness of his scars, the harsh brutality of the belt.

"You're not angry?" She finally whispers because she is, for both of them.

Daryl's voice is sleepy and a little halting, thick like he's nearly unconscious again. "Person once said to me: 'you gotta put it away, 'fore it kills you'."

Her breath catches in her throat and it's like the memory bursts over her eyes, of her saying that; trying to help him and then it pairs with her in the bedroom earlier today, looking at the blood and remembering her kill. Her knife raised over his heart and his hand wrapped around her wrist, telling her to, ' _put it away'_ and she hadn't even heard the unspoken words, ' _before it kills you.'_

When she answers, her voice trembles from un-shed tears but she knows it doesn't matter, because his even breathing means he's fallen asleep anyway. "I'll try."

* * *

Her eyes next open to the sunshine and her face is full of the cushion she's lay on, the scent musty in her nose. It takes a moment to understand why she's so unbearably hot and then she realises it's because Daryl is pressed against the whole of her back, their positions seemingly having shifted during the night. He's warm enough that their skin is stuck together and Beth's damp hair from the night before feels like it hasn't dried at all from sweating. She stretches, a pain between her thighs that makes her wince and Daryl's morning hard-on nestled in the crack of her ass. Turning her face back into the cushion, she smiles playfully, pushing her hips back like it's a sleepy gesture.

She does it a few more times until his hand clamps down on her hip and his voice, thick with sleep, growls, "I know you ain't sleepin' girl."

There's no way she could have pretended otherwise with her racing heart so she laughs, giving away the game. "Mornin'."

His mouth presses to her shoulder, over the bite and licks softly, causing an agonised moan to slip out of her mouth. "Mornin'."

"You gonna do somethin' 'bout that?" She whispers into the pillow, not really expecting him to hear through the fabric.

He does. "You sure you can take it?"

"I can always take you, Dixon."

He groans and shuffles behind her, taking a hold of his cock and rubbing it through her tender folds until he gently pushes inside her. She moans thickly, a sleepy hush falling to the room as the golden sun worms its way in through the windows, bringing with it a warmth that shines red behind her closed eyelids. For what feels like the whole morning they lull around in the sun, Daryl taking her on her side and then laying her out on her stomach, his hand rough and hot on her thigh as he pushes it up the cushions. When she cums for the second time she can't possibly take no more and neither can he, because he cums all over her ass with a dirty grunt.

Another length of time is spent panting and coming down, by which point the sun is high, beating its rays on them like an angry reminder that the world is waiting for them outside. It's almost painful to disengage from each other, to pull apart their sticky limbs and pull their clothes on. But they do it because yesterday she wanted to just sit and breathe and she got a lot more than that. She got a beautiful night with Daryl and a morning full of hazy, soft orgasms with his tongue bathing the bite on her shoulder. Now it's time to face reality and they do. Dressing, gathering supplies and with her knife in her palm and his crossbow in hand, they leave the sanctuary that cradled them for a whole blissful night.

They clear out of the strip and duck into the cover of trees before they talk. "So what's the plan?"

Daryl shrugs, watching his feet and holding the crossbow down to the floor. "Can't go back. Tracks'll be gone now. Been a while."

"What'd we do then? Just walk?"

"Just walk," he agrees.

They do.

Walk until they can't walk anymore, set up camp and get food, collect water and wood for a fire. By night time their bellies are stuffed and she's too tender for more sex but they cuddle before he sits up to take first watch. That goes on for two more days until they find a sign, a literal one. 'Terminus' which promises sanctuary and safety.

"You think it's legit?" Daryl asks.

Beth swallows the rising excitement in her stomach. "Don't matter. They'll be there. They woulda saw an' they'll be there."

His face is pinched as he stares at her for a long time and she refuses to doubt the thing he's already doubting, to extinguish the hope he doesn't seem to have. So without any more words, they walk on the tracks and they don't stop. Just like before, she's doing everything one step at a time. When they left the clothes shop, it was 'find evidence that the family are alive' and now that she has it's 'find terminus'. It becomes a burning, throbbing desire inside her that makes her not want to eat or slow down, take a break for the day to make camp.

Soon Daryl is pissed and agitated with her and grips her shoulder with strong fingers. "How 'bout you sit the fuck down an' stop actin' like a fuckin' kid? We ain't walkin' no damn more today."

She turns on him with bared teeth and a red face after so long under the sun. "If you wanna stop then you stop, 'cause I ain't!"

His teeth are clenched as she shakes his hand from her shoulder and he takes a step back. "I wanna see 'em too, but we ain't never gonna get there if we collapse from exhaustion first and some walker gets an' easy meal!"

He's right. She knows he's right but it's that same driving, pounding urge in her gut that she can't shake. For all the time that she was held captive, she thought about them. Maggie and Glenn and Rick and Carl, baby Judith, Michonne, Daryl. But most of all she thought about her sister, who had just lost their daddy same as her but probably didn't know that her sister was alive. All she wanted was to see her, to tell her that she made it, that they all had jobs to do and she got hers done. All she wanted was her sister and it was driving her around the bend, driving Daryl around the bend.

If she just has her sister, it'll be okay. She'll stop having nightmares of the men she killed, of blood spraying her face when she tears Daryl's throat out. She doesn't know how to express those feelings, that desire so deep inside it's like part of her bones so she doesn't. Instead she throws herself at him, kisses him with all her desperation and her anger and her fear until he takes her by the hair and shoves her face first against a tree, rips their jeans down and fucks her like it's the last time; like he can't get enough of her. When she finally gives in and agrees to make camp, she sleeps with several layers of skin ripped off her cheek.

When they leave in the morning, they're left on the tree where Daryl screwed her senseless. They find terminus and it's a walker infested, burnt out hulk of a building that makes all the air explode from her lungs in a hitching sob. Daryl doesn't seem surprised but he doesn't lash her with the cruelty of 'I told you so's' which she's grateful for. They keep walking and only break at dark to camp.

Lying in his arms that night, her cheeks wet with tears and her voice thick she whispers to the sky, "we're never gonna find 'em are we?"

He's silent and she knows it's because he refuses to lie to her, to give her some bullshit hope that will make her feel better. Finally, his answer is simple and honest, "we'll find 'em. Dead or alive, we'll find 'em."

The next day it's a struggle to get up, a struggle to find that driving urge anymore. It feels hopeless, everything feels hopeless. All she wants is the sanctuary of the clothes shop apartment, the cushions under her face, Daryl behind her, pumping gently between her sore legs and groaning in her ear. The simplest tasks of washing, eating, sleeping and gathering supplies. It's like that first time, on the farm when she worked out how hopeless the world was; when she slit her wrist to escape any more pain or suffering. It feels like a betrayal to Daryl to feel that way and the guilt eats her alive every time he gives her helpless eyes and agitated movements, his lack of ability to make her feel better driving him insane.

What can he do though? There's no way to pinpoint their family in this whole, fucked up world. They could spend the rest of their lives looking and it's possible that even then, they would never find them, would never know. It takes nearly an entire day but he convinces her, in the end, to get up and keep walking.

That's when they find a bus.

Daryl is the first one to see, up in front. "Beth, look!"

She glances up from where she was watching the road, catching sight of the burnt-out bus. "You think…"

"Yeah, yeah, could be, girl, c'mon."

They pick up the pace, moving at a light jog as they crest a hill and the bus comes into full view, as does all the walkers. "Shit, that's a lot," she murmurs, grabbing her knife.

The minute she speaks they start turning around, rambling closer and as Daryl fires bolts to his right Beth stares straight ahead, her insides freezing and her knife slipping from her slack grasp as the world tilts on its side and explodes in her head, her ears ringing with its destruction. "No."

The walker comes closer, shambles, fingers outstretched and greedy and Beth catches it by the arms and feels like she's drowning as Daryl fights in the background and tears pour down her face. "Beth, the fuck? C'mon. Beth!"

He runs to her and then he freezes too, walkers advancing on them at all sides but their combined gaze stuck on the one growling and squirming in her arms, her hands clamped tight. " _No_ ," she whimpers again. "No, no, no, no! Maggie, no! I can't do it without you, I can't, I _can't_ do it without you! Please! Mags?"

Her voice is shrill and loud and broken and it startles birds and brings more walkers towards them and suddenly there's another face in the crowd she recognises and her knees go so weak she drops to the floor, bringing her dead sister down with her.

"Beth! Get up! Beth, there's too many!" Daryl shouts over the impact of skulls being impaled and his own grunts.

"I can't do it without her," she whispers, more to herself than him, her eyes lost in her sister's dead ones.

"You gotta, girl! _Unh._ Get up! Beth, they're comin'! Get up! We gotta go! Beth, _get u-"_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending has come upon us my friends and I'm actually really, really happy with where I've ended it. I feel like this fic became everything I wanted it to be. Dark, smutty, angsty, little fluffy and raw. I feel like I've achieved that and I truly hope you liked being on this ride with me because frankly, I thought it was wild.

"Daryl!"

She looks over at him as he goes down under three walkers, her heart threatening to burst straight through her skin and bones. Her knife is somewhere on the floor and the walker that used to be her best friend in the world is trying to sink its teeth into her throat. From all sides, more walkers are coming and it doesn't matter right now, it _can't_ matter right now that her dead sister is trying to eat her alive and that further in the crowd, she sees a walker that used to be Glenn.

"I'm comin'! Hold on!" She shouts to Daryl without looking, clutching the walker by the throat with one hand while the other desperately hunts on the floor for her knife.

In the background, she can hear Daryl still going, still fighting but she hasn't gotten a good look at him and he could have been bitten or scratched and she wouldn't know without looking because he's a big, dumb idiot and he wouldn't cry out if it happened and she won't know until she gets up and this is so fucking hellish she wants to curl into a ball and cry. She _can't_ , so she grits her teeth, clenches her fingers around the knife, so desperate to get to it that she wraps her fingers around the blade, not the handle and slices her flesh straight open.

When she curves it through the air with a wild shout akin to that of a battle cry, her blood glides down the blade and splashes like holy water against the forehead of what used to be her big sister. Beth tears the blade out and swings it down again, slices her fingers wider right down to the bone but she can't feel it, she can't feel anything, can't see past her blurring eyes or hear past her screams and the walkers are probably due to fall over their easy meal and tear the flesh from her bones any second but she doesn't care because she just needs to keep _stabbing_.

Blood sprays her face and her lips and lands in her eyebrows, her eyelashes, over the bridge of her nose and there's barely a face left cradled in her arms where she's collapsed down to her knees but she keeps going and going, screaming and crying and burning her throat, slicing through her own flesh until it goes numb with agony. Her wrist is on the course of another downwards plunge, the body in her arms long gone still, dead for the final time, not even twitching as she violates its forehead and tears through its skull, when a hand, thick and meaty clenches around her wrist and squeezes so tight she thinks the bones grind and snap in the same second but she can't feel it.

She can't feel anything.

When she looks up it's through crimson, blood pouring down her face like tears though she thinks there might be real tears on her cheeks too, she just forgot that she was crying. When she blinks hard and focuses, the shape becomes Daryl and he's as destroyed as her, covered in blood like she's never seen before and she could bet on what's left of her miserable little life without even needing to see a mirror that they both look like they came from the darkest pit of hell, the same one the walkers crawl out of to possess the bodies of people she once loved.

"Put it away," Daryl breathes. "Girl, just put it away."

It's with those words that the world crashes in and she looks around like a confused animal, thoughts and feeling and her vision all a jumbled mess that she's desperately struggling to understand. The walkers are dead, including the one that used to be her brother in law. His eyes are open, milky and rotted and full of blood that pours out of the cut in his head. Beth glances down at the thing in her arms, the thing that has a body but barely a face, barely a head or a skull or anything at all and she drops it. Just drops it, sounds too loud even in the silence and colours so bright she feels like she's going to throw up her soul. The blade falls from her grasp mostly because she doesn't have a grasp anymore and when she looks at her hand all she sees is bone.

"We gotta go, Beth. There's more comin'. We gotta go."

She tilts her neck back up at him and he's so beautiful under the sun like she knew he'd be. So red. Not human anymore, the light in his eyes a little insane, a little crazed like someone let him glance into a great schism of birth and death and time and all of creation and his small, human brain can't take it, like her small, human brain can't understand why her hand doesn't hurt, why she has a walker strewn before her, why she's numb.

She's so numb.

"Beth, please. Girl, please, get up." He crouches down, looks in her eyes and she nods but she doesn't move and he looks so scared.

Wild and unholy and crazed and not human but so scared and that is human. The most human thing she's ever seen. She stands. On wobbly knees, she stands until her legs give and he catches her, swings his arms under her knees and under her neck and carries her away, carries her away from the madness and the death of something precious. The death of her sister and herself, a part of her she will never get back and as she lies in his arms, cradling her bones and the ribbons of her flesh that were once her fingers, she thinks that it was always meant to end like this.

That in all the worlds and all the alternate realities and through time and creation, she was always meant to lose something and he was always meant to carry her through it. As if he's carried her like this before, as if he will again in some other life, in some other world. Her face is wet as they walk and she knows she's still crying but whatever is forcing the tears is not present and with a blank face and half-lidded eyes, she watches the road gape before them and Daryl walk them into it, to be swallowed whole.

* * *

Sometime later, they stop or more accurately, they _drop._ Daryl down on his knees and his arms tight around her as he goes down and they hit the ground hard, hard enough to jar her bones but none of them make a sound. He holds her and he curves over her, tucks her right into his chest like he can absorb her and he cries. Hitching, destroyed sobs and she stays locked in her position, her hand wrapped around her bleeding one, her flesh stuck together now that the blood has dried like glue and just listens. She has no words to comfort him because she doesn't feel his pain. She doesn't feel anything at all.

After a while he sits up, pulls her up with him and she goes easily, body pliant and mind sluggish, like fragments of time are slipping out of her grasp. Minutes seem to slide away in the blink of an eye and she's surprised to find that when she looks down Daryl is sewing the last stitch into her fingers.  _It doesn't look much better,_ she thinks almost clinically. The flesh is pulled tight and the cuts are jagged, the most vicious, angry red she's ever seen. She knows already how bad they will scar, how the bones will never move again, how the nerves have been utterly destroyed, none savable.

This will heal, if she doesn't get infected but she will never use this hand again. That's probably bad. She probably won't be able to kill people or walkers, or even animals because her fingers won't be capable of holding the crossbow. During her thinking Daryl has wrapped her fingers in a bandage and now he releases it and she pulls it to her chest, cradling it there. They look at one another and there are no words to say because as the pain slowly pulses into her fingers, the rest pulses to her heart and she presses her hand against her mouth to muffle her sobs and Daryl cups the back of her head, pulls her down to his shoulder and rocks her until she has no more tears to give.

* * *

"The others might be alive," Daryl whispers that night, lay in the dark with no fire or moon and barely any stars.

"I don't care."

"Beth-"

"I don't care," she repeats. "They all go eventually."

He's silent for a long time, long enough that she begins to fall asleep. "I go where you go, we stick together."

She doesn't answer because that's not what he's saying and they both know it. The words are clear, the promise implicit.

Just them.

No one else.

* * *

For two days -maybe more, because time is a fickle, bendable thing that she doesn't trust- they lie on the floor and they don't move. They sleep. Sometimes just him, sometimes just her and sometimes together. They don't eat, they don't talk.

They grieve.

They have that and then they move, as one, as a pack. They gather their things and they walk, straight through the night and dawn until they collapse at high noon. When she wakes, she climbs on top of him and sucks his cock until he's awake and when she has his attention she rides him in the afternoon sun until he cums all over her belly. She doesn't, but it's okay because it wasn't the point. They sleep some more, all through the night and then they keep going. They don't have a specific direction, they don't even know what they're looking for. That lasts for a very long time. Weeks, if she works it out.

Many campfires and many, many different locations.

One such night they're finishing their dinner when Daryl speaks, low and quiet. "I never want kids."

She startles because they haven't communicated in words so much lately, having taken to gestures and looks and their bodies. Beth thinks about what he said, not why he said it because she already knows why.

"I used to," she admits.

"An' now?"

She sucks her fingers clean of her dinner before she answers. "No."

He nods and it's decided.

* * *

They know when to stop, the minute they see it. A cabin, nestled so deep in high grass they barely see the front door. It's clean inside, untouched, left like a present from a world long gone. It's a home without them trying to make it one and it makes something like hope pang in Beth's heart, warms her with possibilities she hasn't believed in for a very long time. There's plenty of animals too and Daryl says they're cocky because they're not used to being hunted and that's another thing. There are barely any walkers and when they venture further, a stench like nothing she's smelt since the very first time she smelt a walker nearly keels them over.

The town closest to their cabin is gone.

Wiped off the Earth, leaving nothing but charred remains and bones amongst the ash and a deep crater behind.

It's an awful sight but they turn to each other and they smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! Be still my beating heart is done and now that I've scraped the angst away, I'm ready to dive head first back into smut land. I've got ideas like you wouldn't believe so I need you guys to tell me what you want most. I've got an idea for a new AU, a prequel to Good girl, a new chapter for Tonight I wanna dance for you orrrrr another chapter for Caught, a epilogue, if you will. The most popular order is the order that I'll write them in because lets face it, I will end up writing them all!


End file.
